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Published: October 15th 2008
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10.10.08
Km travelled 6092
Time to leave Moscow and look forward has come. This morning we had the great news from Irkutsk that we could rearrange our booking, so we can spend more time in Mongolia! Wonderful. That's all we wanted. We get ourselves ready and pack everything in time to leave the room. After having abused of Igor twice yesterday to book our next trains, he seemed in such good mood today that when we went down to leave the key, we thought we could ask for the last ticket! We will always be grateful to Igor for being so helpful, I don't know how we could have done otherwise! For the last time we went down to the Red Square and then it was time to leave.
We are now on the train to Perm, a wonderful old style Russian train. We share the 4 berth kupe with two ladies that are now having a banquet, a feast of cheese, meat, cakes and tea. We're leaving Moscow with uncertain feelings. We probably expected to find the slick contemporary façade of an old rural country, but Moscow looked to us like a place 50 years behind, in
every aspect. A poor city where very few are rich and you don't see them. A city of beautiful women and ugly men, of big cars and tube trains from WWII, of big ideas and small lives in a bottle. I don't know if we feel deluded or not, but it leaves a strange feeling. On the train the samovar is already boiling so Mike volunteered to go and fill in our flask so we can make some coffee. Outside the window tall yellow foliages parade on tiny grey trunks. And now finally in front of us two steaming cups of black coffee. One of the ladies eats pumpkin seeds on a newspaper. It's warm inside here.
By the time I read the first chapter of my new book dark has fallen outside and the lady is still eating pumpkin seeds.
11.10.08
I'm rolling on myself in the tiny bed but I can't find a comfortable position. My back is soar, my neck is soar. It's still dark and everyone's sleeping.
When the sun comes out the lady in the bed under me wakes up. And after a while slowly everyone. Michael at last opens one eye, has
a look around and goes back to dreamland. My first worry in the morning is to find out when we'll arrive in Perm and also, I would love to go to the toilet but I know if I come down this bed there's no way I can get back up on my own. Fortunately I don't have to wait too long, the music is turned on again and is sign that the day starts.
The train is like a house, everyone is wearing slippers and house clothes, we have a coffee and read our books. The ladies are ripping the flesh off a whole chicken with their hands and eating it with cucumber. I still need to ask the train man what time we'll arrive so to make sure we understand each other I grab the wonderful and extremely useful phrasebook and I manage to write the question in Russian. I have to say the guy is also very helpful and I understand is going to tell us when to get ready.
So we finally got to our destination, the train man alerts us for the 10th time, and we jump off the train. We're in Perm. You're wondering what
am I talking about, and I understand perm is definitely not one of the most remarkable cities in Russia, in fact i'm pretty sure is a quite boring place. The reason that took us here at the feet of the Ural Mountains is that we didn't want to miss two quite notable places: Perm-36, a labour camp for dissidents (gulag), and the Kungur Ice Cave. Anyway after about two km walking from the station, after kindly refusing a lift from a nice couple that offered to give us directions, we check-in at the Ural Hotel. Despite the quite brutal look from outside, the reception hall is very flashy and modern, probably hiding the innumerable mediocre rooms spread in the labyrinth of the hotel. But for us is perfectly fine, plus the girl at the reception desk speaks a bit of English and we manage to find out how to get to Kungur tomorrow! We made some shopping at the supermarket so I'll go and try to sort out some dinner now.
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